Over the objections of his friends throughout the Hughes organization, who warned Meier not to raise too many questions about the cabal now running Summa Corp by raising his public profile, Meier decided to get into politics (despite the 1970 blow-up). He was told the organization would “ruin” him if he ran against the GOP. Meier ignored them. He determined to get to the bottom of what he regarded as the mysterious disappearance of Hughes and to get on with his own career, by running for the U.S. Senate against an old friend of Nixon’s, Pete Domenici. “I was telling them,” Meier says, “that my feeling was that McGovern stood a chance of winning the election only if he exposed Nixon in areas such as his relationship with Hughes, such as the fact that I was told directly by Hughes to lay off the Atomic Energy Commission because he had a deal with the President that he would get approval for the acquisition of Air West. And I was sitting there in Don Nixon’s house, listening to him talk to Nixon in the White House about Air West and Hughes. Now, where are those tapes between Don and Richard Nixon? Nixon had Don’s phone tapped.” [Nixon’s office was bugged and a partial one way should be available from one side at least. 18-Minute gap]. The White House had cause for alarm at Meier’s conversations not only with Jack Anderson but with high-level McGovern supporters as well.
1/11/1972